Moments before the doors opened to the Heights Room for the third annual STEM Career and Internship Fair (for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) at 10:30 a.m., company representatives were setting their tables with complimentary USB chargers, M&Ms, and lip balm. Thirty-eight firms had reserved space, hailing from fields including pharmaceuticals (e.g., AstraZeneca, Fosun Pharma), healthcare (Boston Children’s Hospital, Commonwealth Care Alliance), computer sciences (Dell, Oracle America), and sustainability (Northstar Recycling, the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center). Brightly colored banners and posters staked out their territories (“Code, explore, communicate,” read one from the software and consulting company Fast Enterprises, LLC; “We’re enabling the body to produce its own healing proteins to address unmet medical needs,” announced Moderna Therapeutics. The General Dynamics Mission Systems team brought a bright-yellow, three-foot-long replica of its SandShark, an autonomous underwater vehicle developed for the U.S. Navy. Systems engineer Patrice Joyce said the company recruited at “schools like MIT, but we’re also going to liberal arts schools. We need well-rounded people; we’re looking for curiosity.”

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The fair was begun in 2016, says the Career Center’s Lisa White, to support the growing number of undergraduates studying in STEM fields. Currently, 24 percent of Boston College students major in a STEM subject (the University considers earth and environmental sciences its E; an engineering department will launch soon after the Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society moves into its new building in late 2021). Biology is the third most popular major, with 958 undergraduates; computer science and nursing are in the top 10. What’s more, jobs in STEM fields are multiplying—a 2017 report from the U.S. Department of Commerce anticipates STEM occupations will grow by 8.9 percent between 2014 and 2024, almost 40 percent faster than non-STEM jobs.

On Wednesday, October 17, the aisles filled quickly, with students attired mostly in suits, blazers, white blouses, and button-down shirts. Their smiles were bright, their handshakes brisk. They carried resume-filled portfolios, and they spread out like so many treasure hunters. For some, their objectives for the morning were still taking shape. Jacob Fisher ’21, a biology major from Phoenix, Arizona, was searching for an internship, field unknown. The one thing certain, he said, was “I don’t want to go back to Phoenix for the summer.” William Hufnagle ’19, a computer science major, planned to speak with Meditech, Moderna, and General Dynamics. “My dad is a computer programmer; he looked at the lineup of companies and sent me a list of suggestions.” Hufnagle wore a dark suit with a crimson tie and carried a folder thick with resumes. “The last fair I attended,” an omnibus event held in Conte Forum in September, he said, “I only brought a half-dozen or so resumes, and I got crushed. This time I have about 30.”

At the Vertex Pharmaceuticals table, Ashley Jefferson ’05, MS’10, dressed in a dark blue suit (no tie), said he considered his conversations with students a “first interview, in a way.” As Vertex’s manager of early career and talent outreach, he spoke with an estimated 75 students about internships and fulltime positions over the fair’s three hours, trading company information packets and business cards for resumes, on which he would make quick notes about each student.

The majority of firms in attendance represented the obvious elements of STEM. But others, such as retailer TJX (its banner read: “redefining traditional retail through technology”), made clear that STEM touches all industries. The two company representatives—actually, software engineers—talked up the company’s desire for software people who were “working with new languages,” in the words of TJX’s Andrew Maroney, a security solutions engineer. On another aisle, Gary St. Laurent, intern and professional development coordinator at the New England Aquarium (which promises real sharks), told students about research and public education opportunities.

Overall, 328 students, in almost equal numbers of women and men, swiped their ID cards to gain entrance to the event. Attendance peaked around noon, when classrooms emptied for lunch. Traffic in the aisles slowed as lines formed in front of tables and students paused to consult their maps and ponder next moves.

Although company representatives seemed not to hurry, and the conversations went back and forth (“It’s a two-way street,” said TJX’s Maroney; “we want to understand what students are looking for”), efficiency ruled. At the Boston Children’s Hospital table (internships and fulltime positions on offer), two recruiters fielded questions from a line of students that held steady at five or six, and the conversations rarely ran longer than two minutes.

The event concluded at 1:30 p.m., by which time the aisles were mostly cleared of students (a few lingered in conversation with recruiters). Behind the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute table, recruiter Megan Grzybowski stretched her back. “I don’t have a voice anymore,” she said with a smile. Nearby, Adam Esposito ’14, a senior research associate at Moderna, was catching up with fellow 2014 classmate and member of the chemistry honors program Philip Lam, a scientific associate at Novartis. Students who visited the Moderna table, Esposito said, “represented a great spectrum of the hard sciences—a lot of biology, biochemistry, a couple of grad students, including a physics Ph.D. student.” A number of students had asked him for his one piece of advice. Esposito’s reply: “Network. It sounds corny, but when you apply online it’s often like a black hole. There are keyword searches being done, and if they aren’t found on your resume, a human will never lay eyes on it. So, meet people and stay in touch.”